It’s kind of ironic that New Zealand and Australia are currently involved in new covid lockdowns when the rest of the world is starting to move out of them. Especially here in New Zealand, where we have managed to avoid a few covid bullets and ridden out the storm in quiet isolation. Now a single delta case has expanded out into a couple of hundred within a week and we are all locked into our home bubbles again for a fortnight (at least). Lockdown 2.0 is obviously not as much fun as lockdown 2020. There is no novelty value anymore and it’s simply a matter of enduring groundhog day after day for a few weeks.
Interestingly the mental impact this time isn’t so great,
since we have all been there and done that before. Anxiety, uncertainty, fear –
not so much (although it’s clear delta isn’t something you should play around with).
Now it’s just boredom that is the enemy.
So apart from “working from home”, the main challenge is how
to fill in time. During the first lockdown I had a lot of trouble working out
what I wanted to listen to. Nothing really felt right. This time around it isn’t
so hard, but the main focus has been on how to fill in time and stave off the
boredom with music. So with that in mind I have put together a list of steers
for anyone in the same boat. The common factor here is that these are all
artists that produce long pieces of music. No three minute songs here. These will
fill in a good quarter of an hour or so at a bite, so they will help your day to
fly by. This post also serves as a neat segue into our next release, but more
about that in September.
The art of jamming has largely been forgotten and/or
abandoned over time. It suits a live environment with an audience committed to
going on a journey with the band. The 1970’s saw jam bands thrive. Some might
say it was too healthy and the jam garden was allowed to grow a lot of tall and
thick weeds, but at its best there wasn’t much to touch it for its ability to
take you on a trip.
Jamming started in the world of jazz obviously, since jazz
is by definition an improvisation. It crossed over into rock at the tail end of
the sixties in the American West Coast ballrooms and developed further into
festivals and concert halls everywhere as the seventies progressed. A lot of
festivals actually saw both jazz and rock artists on the same bill, probably
best illustrated by the 1970 Isle of Wight festival where Miles Davis debuted
his “rock” band to an international audience. That cross-pollination was a
feature of the seventies and led to some of the most inspired music ever
created, laid down to willing and receptive audiences, many of whom would
literally go all night with multi-artist bills. There is a great Rolling Stones
bootleg in circulation where the band goes on at 3:00am and Mick is confused as
to whether they are continuing from the night before or getting everyone up for
breakfast.
Then punk happened, the eighties arrived and everyone got
obsessed with shiny glossy things that provided cheap thrills and instant
gratification. Jamming was driven into forgotten backwoods in the southern
States and parts of Europe that couldn’t care less anyway.
So let me hip you to some of this transcendental goodness.
Most of it is unashamedly from the golden era in the early seventies, but there
are also a few more recent pointers to keep things a bit fresh.
Southern rock. Let’s get straight to the heart of the matter. The southern USA was essentially jam band territory. Still is. What started out in San Francisco with acid rock bands like the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service was translated into something altogether more soulful and satisfying. The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd are probably the best examples, but there were plenty of others equally committed to playing all night. You can also add to this Humble Pie and the original Fleetwood Mac, despite the fact they were Brits, because they spent a lot of time in the States on the concert circuit. The best thing about these guys was that their jamming was focused on a groove, it wasn’t an indulgent show of ability, which you could say the likes of Led Zeppelin and lot of prog bands were guilty of. Bands like the Black Crowes and Govt Mule have carried on what has become a southern tradition into the nineties and noughties. There are plenty of examples to go with, but my advice is to track down live recordings of these bands and pretend you are in the audience as best you can.
We’re going to be here for a while. They didn’t play 15 minute epics, but the seventies also saw the high water mark of some rock artists playing for a looong time. Neil Young would do an hour long solo set before bringing on Crazy Horse for another two hours of rock. Likewise Bruce Springsteen would pretty much play his entire back catalogue if you let him. Tom Petty was another who would play a couple of dozen tracks in a set that featured plenty of jamming. Did the audience care? Hell no, and you shouldn’t either. There is a ridiculous 5 LP box set by Bruce Springsteen that admittedly spans a decade, but is programmed like a concert. You get the idea.
Fusion. So rock and jazz got together and had a baby. There is a warning flag on this though. A lot of fusion is self indulgent crap of a similar kind to prog rock. When it’s good it’s very good, but buyer beware. My advice here is to stick to the obvious players like Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis from around 1970 – 1975, and preferably closer to 1975 than earlier. It’s that specific. Miles Davis’ Pangaea and Agartha sets are sublime (although Miles himself is off colour on much of them because he was sick at the time) and Herbie’s work with the Headhunters is also essential.
Latin. Basically War and Santana. War started life in the spotlight as backing band for Eric Burdon, but went their own way in the seventies. They are a bit lighter than a lot of the other bands on this page and feature a harmonica as a main solo instrument. Nice though, especially their extended instrumental jams. Santana are the daddies here though. Carlos hit a rich vein of inspiration in that key 1970-75 period. Caravanserai is one of my favourite studio albums, but it is blown away by the Lotus live set recorded in concerts from Japan in 1975. Lotus was originally only released in Japan as a triple album (with an incredible fold out design that is a product of the time in itself), but has since been made more accessible. It’s jaw dropping how a band can jam so wildly and be so tight at the same time. There are plenty of well recorded bootlegs of Santana from all around the world during this time, so if you want to explore further get googling. One recorded in Alaska springs to mind…
Ambient. Change of pace. Ambient music is intended to form a background to activity. Music for airports. No pussyfooting. You have to be careful with ambient music though. It can slow down time too much rather than filling it in. For that reason I’d generally avoid this during a lockdown situation as it could have you climbing the walls. If one must, Brian Eno’s ambient stuff is the most accessible (read ‘boring’), and Robert Fripp, Harold Budd and other krauty minimalists also have their moments. Another goodie is a solo album by Edgar Froese from Tangerine Dream entitled “Epsilon in Malaysian Pale”. Say what now? Apart from the decidedly pretentious title, this album features two side long tracks that attempt to transport you to a tropical Asian jungle. And almost succeed.
Prince. Surely not. What’s the purple one doing here? Well, his princeliness was one to jam live. The song Purple Rain was often dragged out to about 20 minutes and Head regularly made ten. He would often throw several tracks together into long medleys going back and forth between them in the same way that James Brown did. He was also so prolific and varied that you can spend days going through his back catalogue and not get bored. I miss this guy.
Acid. No list of time bending music would be complete without some genuine acid rock. Not the tame, sub-blues that passed for acid rock in the original San Francisco explosion in the sixties. I mean stuff like Gong, Hawkwind and Acid Mother’s Temple. Brain fried, guitar and effects laden stews of sound. I’ve linked you to our page on Gong, but you also need to check out Hawkwind’s Space Ritual and pretty much anything live by Acid Mother’s Temple. You need to be in a strong frame of mind though, otherwise you might get crushed.
So there you go. This little list should see you through.
And if the music doesn’t, the googling possibilities should. Like I say, we
will be back in September with our new release. It would also fit onto this
page, but we’ll have to keep it for freer days. In the meantime, you can check
out our other stuff top right.
Stay safe and get vaccinated peoples. It’s the only exit
from this mess. You wear a seat belt don’t you? Same thing. It will save your
life.
